The Tribune's news staff — the largest in the Midwest — is filled with investigative reporters, beat writers, photographers and storytellers who are experts at helping readers understand this region. Starting today, we're making the Chicagoland section bigger to bring you even more of their good work. Close readers will also notice that the Focus page and the first page of the Chicagoland section have switched places. This gives us a Focus page inside the local news chapter, a place where we can...

HARDCOVER FICTION 1. "Invisible" by James Patterson and David Ellis (Little, Brown, $28). An FBI researcher on leave thinks hundreds of murders, rapes and kidnappings are connected, but no one believes her. Last week: 1 2. "Top Secret Twenty-One" by Janet Evanovich (Bantam, $28). A bounty hunter is out to find Jimmy Poletti, a car dealer out on a bail and a suspected murderer. Last week: 2 3. "The Silkworm" by Robert Galbraith (Mulholland, $28). A...

A vehicle for Rahm It was clear from start that this series is a vehicle for Rahm Emanuel's political ambitions beyond being re-elected mayor of Chicago. While my wife and I have followed the show, the tightly choreographed segments featuring Emanuel have become a nuisance and appear more and more like a political ad. It's too bad, the show had the potential to be so much more and raise the national consciousness about the problems Chicago and other cities throughout the country face when it...

Since she won the South Carolina state title in the shot put as a high school sophomore, Raven Saunders had thought of Southern Illinois as her dream school. It was the place she hoped to become an elite thrower under the tutelage of Saluki coaches Connie Price-Smith, a four-time Olympic thrower, and her husband, John Smith, who had coached his wife. When her junior year ended, SIU had shown no interest in Saunders, with good reason. John Smith didn't need to invest in going after an...

After a few days of warmth, winter returns to Chicago today, with temperatures dropping to more seasonal levels and a snowstorm scheduled to hit overnight. The National Weather Service has issued a winter weather advisory from 9 p.m. Saturday to 9 a.m. Sunday for every county in northeastern Illinois. The advisory warns of a mix of rain and freezing rain turning into sleet and then snow, making travel hazardous. The snow will last until about 4 a.m., when a freezing drizzle...

As a preview to this year's Children's Read & Write Program, which invites children to submit book reviews for possible publication, we asked several Chicago-area authors to tell us about favorite characters from childhood books. Here's what they said. Check back in the coming weeks for more authors and more characters. Lynne Raimondo Author of "Dante's Poison" Growing up, my three favorite characters were Bob Andrews, Pete Crenshaw and Jupiter Jones....

Favorite haunts Chicago Paranormal Detective agency co-founder (and suburban Chicago police officer) Tom Froelich's three favorite haunted spots around Illinois: "The site of the old Casa Madrid (a former mob hangout, long since closed; at 25th Avenue and Lake Street): The place where I experienced the most personal moments of discomfort and was the most creeped out." "A building on Main Street in Galena. An old casket-making company. People talk about...

Early on the Fourth of July, shoppers buzzed. They filled their bags with sweet corn - on sale five for $2 the Jewel in Bartlett. The line at the meat counter grew with each passing minute. Cupcakes, cookies and even Patriot Pretzels drowned in red, white and blue. Jay Herndon and Rita Barr made it about halfway through their handwritten list when they stopped to grab some burger buns and sausage rolls from shelves stacked high. They opted for a classic American...

The National Weather Service has issued a frost advisory tonight for much of the Chicago-area. Only Cook County was left out of the advisory , which is in effect from 1 a.m. to 8 a.m. Monday and warns that frost is possible as tonight's temperatures fall into the mid-30s. The agency says that some plants outside could be killed or damaged if they are left uncovered. According to the weather sevice , the average arrival of the first frost for Chicago, signified...

Paul La Schiazza, president of AT&T Illinois, takes over Tuesday as chairman of the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce, succeeding Scott Swanson, president of PNC Bank. Swanson had held that position for two years. La Schiazza is a 35-year veteran of AT&T, a multinational communications company and one of the state's largest private employers, with more than 14,000 Illinois employees. He has been a member of the chamber board since 2007 and its vice chairman for two...

A headline in Monday's paper: "32 hurt, 4 killed in 36 hours. " There is great, untold sorrow behind those numbers, 32-4-36, but we have become almost desensitized to much of the gun violence we read about in newspapers and see on television. We see the numbers, and we observe the violence, and then they fade away, quickly. The CNN series "Chicagoland" has been offering us plenty of violence, and violence remains a large portion of the seventh of its eight hours, mostly...

A new ad campaign is highlighting the plight of the long term unemployed in the Chicago area. “Faces of the unemployed” launched earlier this month aims to eliminate the stigma for job seekers who've been unemployed for more than 27 weeks. The campaign was developed by Skills for Chicagoland's Future, a public-private partnership that aims to fill open jobs in the region with unemployed job seekers. Nearly 200,000 job seekers live in Chicago/Cook County, the organization...

Thirteen months after resurrecting the Smashing Pumpkins -- the brand not the band -- Billy Corgan returned home to play Chicagoland -- sorta. The Smashing Pumpkins performed Saturday at the Horseshoe Casino in Hammond, Ind. "It's a freaking casino," an exasperated Kate Rowan, 28, of Pilsen told the Tribune as she waited for the band to start. "You have to be here with non-fans." --------- TEXT "REDHOTS" TO 25808 FOR A DAILY CELEB NEWS UPDATE SENT TO YOUR PHONE

Chicagoland Collegiate Athletic Conference softball players have taken the NAIA's top two awards. Olivet Nazarene second baseman Hannah Gardner was named Friday as national player of the year, and St. Xavier's Nicole Nonnemacher the NAIA national pitcher of the year. Gardner, a senior from Frankfurt, finished her season ranked first in the NAIA in RBIs per game (1.33), second in total RBIs (73), third in runs scored (74), sixth in total hits (90) and sixth in batting average (.533)

"It's playoff time again in this sports-loving city," says narrator/co-writer Mark Konkol at the beginning of episode two of the eight-part CNN series "Chicagoland. " And though you will see all sorts of whooping-hollering-shot-drinking euphoria during clips from the Blackhawks run toward the 2013 Stanley Cup, you will also see disturbing images that address another, if unspoken, part of Chicago last year: It is also murder time again in this violence-plagued...

Huh? "This is the greatest job I've ever had," Mayor Rahm Emanuel says in Episode 4 of the ambitious, now somewhat frustrating eight-part CNN series "Chicagoland," followed some minutes later by police Superintendent Garry McCarthy saying, "This is the greatest job I have ever had" (italics mine). Well, good for them. But we, the viewers, are left to wonder, "How can that be?" "What makes it so great?" This episode is heavy with questions but lighter...

Hot time, summer in the city, and the third episode of "Chicagoland" is filled with fireworks of all sorts. For those of you who like and admire our mayor, this episode is a feast of favorable scenes. For those who do not like and admire the mayor, this episode provides much ammunition for your "nothing but a puff piece" arguments. There is Rahm Emanuel from the past, protesting Nazis in Marquette Park as a bare-chested teenager. There he is last year, high-fiving...